By adamg on Mon., 6/15/2009 - 6:26 pm
Ken Liss describes how the town coped during the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918-1919 - including the creation of an open-air hospital on Summit Avenue.
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"Spanish Flu" a misnomer
By Ken Liss
Tue, 06/16/2009 - 11:22am
It should be noted that “Spanish flu†is a misnomer, even more than “swine flu†is for the current strain. According to the book “Hunting the 1918 Flu†by Kirsty Duncan, news about the flu came out of Spain more readily than from other countries because Spain was neutral in the World War and did not have the press censorship that other European countries had. But the flu did not originate in Spain nor was it more prevalent there than elsewhere.
Kansas Flu, more like
By SwirlyGrrl
Tue, 06/16/2009 - 12:22pm
The 1918 outbreak appears to have originated in Kansas much earlier in the year, in an area of large hog farms and a hugely overpopulated military base. From there it went overseas with the soldiers and fermented in a continent where much public health infrastructure had been destroyed, where it had existed at all.
It exploded back into North America almost simultaneously at the Boston Navy Yard (aka Charlestown Navy Yard) and the Baltimore Navy Yard. Fort Devins was nearly totally shut down by mid-September.
Re; Kansas Flu, more like
By Ken Liss
Mon, 06/22/2009 - 2:52pm
Kansas is right. Slight correction on the Boston breakout (which was apparently much more virulent than the earlier one in Kansas): it was at Commonwealth Pier, where the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center is today, not at the Boston/Charlestown Navy Yard. The victims there were merchant marine trainees rather than U.S. Navy personnel.